Hereford Voice Posted April 28, 2018 Report Posted April 28, 2018 Healthwatch Herefordshire – the local health champion for health and social care has launched a new online engagement tool called The Feedback Centre, created by Midlands based software specialist Ekko, to help people in Herefordshire share their experiences about local health and care services. Healthwatch Herefordshire’s job is to ensure that the voice of patients, carers and service users is at the heart of improving health and social care services. Healthwatch gathers the views of the public views and represents those views to local organisations and makes sure they are taken account of. The new online Feedback Centre will strengthen the voice of people in Herefordshire. It is accessible on a variety of devices including mobile phones, desktop PCs and tablets, just by going to the Healthwatch Herefordshire website. People will be able to easily rate and share experiences of services in an engaging and simple way from wherever they are and receive responses from providers. Healthwatch Herefordshire believes that by helping patients and service users to easily express their views we can gather more feedback to improve health and social care services. Christine Price, Chief Officer of Healthwatch Herefordshire, said: ‘The Feedback Centre tool will support our engagement plans. We have much to be proud of with the health and social care services of Herefordshire that people use every day, we should recognise and celebrate this. But sometimes things go wrong and need improving, so the voice of our community must be heard to help get things right.’ ‘Healthwatch Herefordshire’s aim is to make sure that the patient voice comes through loud and clear to the professionals who plan and deliver our local health and social care services. That is why we have developed a simple yet powerful system that is accessible to the widest possible group of people from wherever they are.’ ‘Millions of people every day use online review systems to give their opinion about other services or products they have bought or used. We want to harness that behaviour to get patients, service users and their families to give us vital information about the health and social care. As an independent organisation, Healthwatch Herefordshire hopes to gain the trust of the public to tell us their full experiences of local services: the excellent and the good, as well as where things need to improve. We hope that by creating a familiar tool that we will be able to engage many more people in celebrating and improving health and social care here in Herefordshire.’ All reviews are vetted before appearing online to ensure an honest representation of each service provider is given, and service providers can submit a response to each review if they wish. Healthwatch will work with health and social care providers to create a transparent online forum and culture of using customer feedback to improve services and celebrate good services. It is hoped providers will also signpost patients to the feedback centre and post the feedback centre widget on their websites, to encourage openness and transparency. Healthwatch will distribute a freepost card feedback options to local services over the coming weeks for those people who aren’t able to access online. We will continue to offer our service on the telephone, social media, visiting groups around the county and go to events where we can talk to people face to face and listen to their views. Make a difference today and rate and review your latest health or social care experience go to Healthwatch Herefordshire Quote
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